Sacremon (Harmony War Series Book 1)

by Michael Chatfield

  Mark lurched over the small inconvenient lip into the factory and crawled to the catwalk, sighting a position that allowed him to see two corridors.

  “Hold your fire until I say so,” Demir said. Mark didn’t need to look on the map to see the enemy targets that started to populate the hallway. He adjusted his gun so his grenade launcher would get a grenade right in the mouth of the corridor.

  The factory was about three hundred meters long, the first colonists entered nervously and slowly, after a quick search they were pushed on by the larger and excited numbers behind them.

  Should have looked a little harder. Mark thought coldly as more colonists moved in and weaved through the wreckage of the factory floor.

  “Second floor, fire,” Demir called out.

  They seemed to fire as one, destruction raining down on the poor colonists that had thought that the factory was clear. They’d been too trusting.

  The lead forces looked around in horror as a wall of fire ripped through their friends.

  “First floor.” Demir’s voice had a cold hunger to it.

  The leading colonists didn’t know what happened, they were just fifty meters from the forces on the ground when they added in their own fire, four repulsors ripped through an unarmored human with brutal efficiency, espically when the targets only fifty meters away.

  The ground floor couldn’t hit targets hiding behind cover, but the second floor could.

  Rounds sparked around Mark and he rolled away from his position, he crawled backwards and moved a new one.

  He sighted a new group and fired into them, sending them sprawling for cover where they immediately open fired, trying to kill him.

  The EMF weren’t having it all their way when they found out that processing forces had homemade grenades, announced by a repulsor gunner’s position exploding.

  There was nowhere to pull back, there was no ground that Mark could give. Instead he fired and moved as fast as possible, hammering as many of the colonists he could get.

  It came down to hand to hand and Mark continued to fire at the colonists that were hiding around the gun emplacements, trying to get him and the other troopers in the rafters.

  “The fuckers are coming through the damned floor; they’ve got some kind of tunnel system!” One of the fighters on the ground floor said in panicked tones, they were all engaged in fighting for their lives in hand-to-hand.

  “Incoming mortar support on the corridor,” Captain Nerva said, his words followed up with the screams of mortars. They popped above the corridors, sending shards through the corridor’s roof. The screams of the mortars competed with the screams of colonists.

  Tyler ran over to Mark using a wall to stop himself as he put rounds into the first floor.

  “You get down there, hand-to-hand is your thing, I’ll cover, gimme your gun,” Tyler said.

  Mark didn’t even think, he’d been taught that his E-12 was his life. Giving it up was like giving up your child, but he trusted Tyler and knew he was a damned good shot.

  Mark was better with his hands.

  Mark thumbed grenades tossing them as he ripped at the release straps on his pack, it came free as the grenades thumped beneath him.

  He rolled under the bannister, grabbing it with one hand to orientate him vertical and dropped onto a colonist, his right blade twirled in his hand and shot out multiple times. His left arm went down and came up with a blade. Fighting when it’s life or death isn’t the smooth and clean like instructional videos, it’s fast, hard and anything goes. Mark’s hands lashed out with speed and precisions but even the most amateur fighter might get a lucky break and hit.

  The difference between their gap in strength was that Mark had augments that accelerated his brain slightly and years of training that made his body react on an almost instinctual level.

  He yelled as he stabbed people, punched, sliced, kicked, working his way to the beleaguered repulsor gunners. They had the hardest time in hand-to-hand but they were the strongest in the section usually. They could lay someone out in short order.

  Mark stabbed a colonist in the back of the head, getting them out of the way of the gunner.

  He recognized the armor and it’s features.

  “No time to nap Dolche!”

  Dolche replied by grabbing his repulsor and holding down the trigger, colonists ran for cover and Mark ran towards the other gunners.

  “Your right, behind machine,” Tyler said. Mark turned as he found a gun edging behind a corner. He slapped it away and drove a blade into a stunned face. He kicked their chest, freeing his blade as an attacker screamed and ran at him from the right. Their screams died in their throat as Tyler put a burst through their face.

  Mark grunted in thanks and moved on, Tyler calling out targets he couldn’t get or Mark following the markers that seemed to come from everywhere.

  “Behind that low long machine is their tunnel.” Mark grabbed a grenade, someone blindsided him, bringing their rifle down on the back of his helmet. Mark, kicked backwards, the helmet took the impact leaving him pissed off but unhurt.

  They stumbled as Mark turned to face them, stabbing them quick and fast before punching them with the hand that held the grenade. He thumbed the now bloody sphere and whipped it down behind the machinery as a head appeared. Tyler put a burst into them and Mark ran for cover, the grenade went off and the low-long machine tilted towards the hole.

  “Gunner by the east walls down and people are getting past him,” Tyler said. “Moving, the fuckers zeroed in on me.”

  “Stay safe,” Mark said, seeing a colonist and running at them, he shoulder checked them into a machine and brought a brutal stomp down on their head. The second stop and they went still, the machinery exploded around Mark. He jumped for cover he unsure of what to do since he hadn’t seen the colonists moving through the machines. He got to his feet weighing whether to attack them or not when grenades bounced off the wall behind him.

  He ran and jumped, hitting a machine and hearing a nasty snap from his hand and shoulder that took the impact of his fall.

  The grenades went off, shards cutting through machinery and finding openings in his armor.

  Mark grunted with the pain and pulled off his own grenade, tossing it where he had been moments ago. He was up and running away, rewarded with frantic yelling behind him just before his grenade cut it off. The colonists had rushed up to make sure he was dead, instead they’d found his surprise.

  “You’ve got one behind the machine your lying next to, on your left,” Mark pointed to his left. “Yes that left. None are coming from the corridors but there are two more underground… ah fuck!”

  “What?” Mark asked.

  “There’s a new force pushing into our people in the other factory,” Tyler surmised.

  “Shit,” Mark cursed.

  “This is Nerva, it looks like the enemy is counterattacking hard, you don’t have the firepower to deal with them. Pullo you will move back in an orderly retreat back to secured positions. We’ll hammer them in the corridors with mortars. I’ve laid out some rough markers.”

  “Yes sir I see them,” Pullo said on the open channel.

  Mark saw them too, it was going to be messy for the first little bit and the safe area was three factories away.

  The plan was simple everyone would get on the second floor and Pullo would move through Warrant Demir’s forces. The warrant had been killed by one of the grenades that the colonists were now throwing out all over the place.

  “Mortar fire coming in, in three minutes and will continue for ten I want you moving by then,” Nerva said.

  “Yes sir!” Pullo said as he started to talk to his forces.

  “Demir’s forces do you understand what you need to do? As we cross you, get to the second floor and we’ll cover you, then leapfrog back to safety,” Pullo said.

  A chorus of rough yes’s came back.

  Mark put a blade away and grabbed his pistol shooting, clubbing, and stabbing whoever he coul
d find. The colonists had thinned out and were wary of coming through the corridor towards them. He pulled back to Dolche and the two other repulsor gunners that were still alive.

  Their section had been reduced to seven people.

  The colonists fire had tapered off to a few shots here and there, playing a deadly game of peekaboo with the EMF troopers. The repulsor gunners had used their grenades to open up their line of sight. The factory was a mess of body gore and twisted machinery.

  The mortars were falling and Mark could hear Pullo’s forces pulling back. The colonists must have as well, their rate of fire picked up briefly. The troopers took cover, popping off shots if they got one on the enemy.

  Pullo’s section massed fire onto the colonists, putting their heads down with sheer massed firepower.

  “Move to the second floor!” Pullo said, his section not pausing long as they ran on the ruined roofs of the corridors to the next factory. Colonists were waiting on the second floor but the EMF were not in a mood to piss about. Repulsors, grenades and E-12’s responded to the fire, hammering them down.

  Mark was headed towards the closest ramp to the second floor, he tilted his left arm up, letting his blade fall back into place. The augments were supposed to number the pain but it felt like a giant and used a sledgehammer on his hand and shoulder.

  He fired his pistol at the colonists keeping their heads down.

  The repulsor gunners ran past him, Dolche was firing to cover them up to the second floor.

  Time seemed to slow as Dolche got hit with one of the explosive rounds, it rocked him back but he kept fighting, turning the bastard that shot him into mince.

  Others started firing, there was little support from the second floor as they were getting ready to pull back.

  Dolche’s repulsor got hit, parts of the gun flying into him.

  Mark’s pistol ran empty and he slammed a new mag in but the colonists were firing at him now and swarming Dolche who was fighting them off with his gun.

  “Kill me Mark, don’t let these fucking bastards get me!” Dolche yelled.

  Mark was torn for a second, there had to be a way to save Dolche, but then the man went down. There wasn’t a way to save him, this wasn’t fantasy or fairy tales, this was war. Things got bloody and you made choices, sometimes you didn’t get a choice at all. There was no saving him. That thought lingered in Mark for a moment longer.

  He yelled a wordless shout, firing and running up the ramp.

  “Please, Mark!” Mark slammed his pistol into his holster, his teeth now gritted so tight it hurt as he grabbed a grenade with his functional right hand. He thumbed it, stepping to the bannister of the second floor and threw it like a spear right at Dolche where Colonists were stabbing through his armor.

  Mark’s grenade went off and Dolche’s marker disappeared.

  Tyler came up beside Mark and fired onto the second floor.

  “Move it!” He yelled, Mark moved and Tyler turned to follow. He handed Mark his rifle, getting the sling off of him as they jumped onto the corridor’s roof.

  Mark grabbed it and slung it. They got ten feet and the roof collapsed under their legs.

  They hit the ground, their weapons coming up as mortars started hitting the corridor behind them that had linked Pullo’s position and their own moments ago.

  “We’re not going to be able to get up to the second floor,” Mark said, his voice hard.

  “This floor is going to be hell,” Tyler said, covering Mark’s back as they moved towards where their section was now waiting while Pullo’s section were pulling back to the next building.

  “We go down, less places for them to come from,” Mark said.

  “We don’t know that,” Tyler said, his voice tight, knowing that they were essentially fucked.

  “Better than up here, plus we’ve got grenades,” Mark said.

  “Yeah,” Tyler said, it was odd to find relief in the fact that they could kill themselves if they needed to.

  Mark entered the next factory, colonists were focused on the second floor. Not the corridors.

  Mark held his fire and looked for access points to the tunnel system that must be hidden underneath the factories. He found an opened grate that led down a ladder.

  “I got you,” Tyler said, they had to move fast their section was now running after Pullo’s.

  Mark got down the ladder slowly, his left hand and shoulder were giving him trouble.

  There wasn’t anyone around but people were still hustling overhead. Tyler followed him down a few seconds later.

  “Let’s get going, we’ll blow this behind us,” Mark said, there were three directions to go, one that looked to go under the factory, another that headed in towards processing and another that headed out.

  “Gotcha.” Tyler watched their back as they moved up. “Far enough away now,” Tyler said, popping grenades into the hallway behind them, the tunnel shook with the impacts and dust flew back at them.

  “Good to go,” Tyler said a few moments later, slapping Mark’s shoulder and facing the same way now.

  They had to hunker down a bit, their height making them prone to hitting their heads.

  “Who the fuck made this? Dwarfs?” Tyler asked, getting a dry laugh from Mark as the tension bled off a little.

  They moved as fast as they dared, which was just a bit faster than a slow crawl. Mark took point and Tyler followed behind, his weapon ready to snap up at a moment’s notice.

  They didn’t need words to communicate when they thought they saw something or were going to check out a curve in the tunnel, a simple twitch of the shoulders, raising armor, or tilting their helmeted head accompanied with a grunt was enough.

  It wasn’t long until they came to another tunnel that ran perpendicular to theirs.

  Mark kneeled, Tyler’s gun coming up above him. Mark eased backwards and pulled out a grenade. Tyler moved back a few more feet.

  “Good?” Mark asked, looking back.

  “Yeah,” he answered.

  Mark thumbed the grenade, hurling it down the tunnel’s corridor, pulling back and bringing his gun up.

  Surprised yells came from the tunnel, drowned out by the deep thump of the grenade. Dust shot out of the tunnel and Tyler saw colonists up ahead and coming towards them. He fired over Mark’s head.

  Mark tilted around the corner he was at. The tunnel had come down but wasn’t fully caved in. He fired a grenade through the opening over the collapsed section of tunnel.

  “I can’t see any more up ahead but let’s get a move on,” Tyler said, nervous.

  “Yeah, standing.” Mark rose and Tyler lowered his gun and they continued on. They hadn’t gone far when Mark saw another group of colonists up ahead, he barely registered them, just shooting at movement. One got a few rounds off. Mark got hit in the stomach twice, the air went out of him and pain welled up from his stomach.

  He coughed in his helmet, ignoring the readings on his vitals as he aimed down the hallway to find Tyler had finished them off.

  “How are you?” Tyler said.

  “Been better,” Mark admitted, stifling his coughing to talk.

  “Can you walk?” Tyler asked sounding scared.

  “Yeah, I just need to seal myself up,” Mark said dragging out a spray and dousing his midsection and leg which was pretty red with blood. He pulled out a needle and jabbed it into the redder leg injecting it

  Mark steeled himself before pushing up. It was hard for him to get to his feet and his augments had to pump massive amounts of stimulants into his system to keep him conscious, his other systems put him back together.

  He bent over his stomach in pain, his upper thigh burned and twanged with pain as the muscles pulled at the tears through them.

  “Good to go,” he said, breathing heavily.

  “Alright.” Tyler moved quicker than before, they came to another perpendicular tunnel. Tyler closed it off as Mark watched the ladder that went up into a factory, he could hear mortar fire in the distance.


  They continued on, coming into contact with three more groups, Tyler hammered them while Mark fought to stay conscious, as soon as he felt drowsy he smacked his broken hand against the wall, using the pain to aid him. It was not pretty.

  “Mark, Tyler, where are you?” Jerome asked over a private channel.

  “Taking the scenic route,” Mark said, his coughs wet now.

  “We’re in the tunnels, what’s happening up there?” Tyler asked, all business as they continued on.

  “We’ve pulled back to the outer five factories losing Pullo in the fighting,” Jerome’s voice was harsh.

  Those words sent a kind of pain that couldn’t be described in physical feeling, they hurt so much worse than the bleeding wounds of Marks stomach. “I just found you guys on my implants, we’ve got teams down in the tunnels, clearing them, there’s a team about five hundred meters from you, let them know where you are and they’ll grab you,” Jerome said.

  Mark used his implants to find the groups Jerome was referring to and accessed their communications.

  “We’re about five hundred meters in front of you, need a goddamn medic,” Mark coughed and slumped against a wall.

  “Who is this?” Someone asked, Mark didn’t pay attention to their name, his vision wobbly already.

  “Corporal Mark Victor, guard for Captain Nerva and my brother Tyler Victor,” Mark added Tyler to the channel with some difficulty. He heard them talking and saw them appear a few moments later, they moved past Tyler who let his rifle fall, they started pumping Mark with various drugs and spraying his wounds.

  Mark changed the settings on his augments putting healing over keeping him awake.

  He tried to fight his eyelids but it was a losing battle, darkness closed in on him.

  ***

  Nerva looked up as Tyler came closer.

  “You called for me Captain?” Tyler asked, there was concern in his voice, not over the conversation that they were about to have, but rather at having to leave his brother who was under the care of a number of medics.